The history of Sony's original PlayStation is largely well known to gamers, born of a disagreement with Nintendo, who it once partnered with to provide a CD-ROM drive for the Super Nintendo.

That disagreement, which reportedly infuriated Sony president Norio Ohga, let to a transition in power. Edge explores the birth of the console that would ultimately change the landscape of the industry, with Sony chinking away at the armor of then-dominant consoles from Sega and Nintendo with its PlayStation. As a companion piece to the magazine's historical piece on the "Fall of Nintendo," it's a fascinating follow-up.

Not only do readers get a peek at preliminary PlayStation logos—which some have probably seen before—and the evolution of the console's controllers, we get a chance to see the old Sony guard in their prime, when Phil Harrison had hair and Ken Kutaragi had a real job.

There's real drama here, when consoles had surprise launches, executives undercut the prices set by their Japanese bosses and games like the original Tekken were complete unknowns. Fascinating stuff.